I write book reviews for all types of books. Mainly, mystery/thriller, Contemporary and Historical fiction, Biography/Memoir and True Crime, and a little Romance, too!

Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday

Spices & Seasons

Spices & Seasons

Friday, August 12, 2016

Curious Minds by Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton- Feature and Review

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, teams up with Emmy-winning writer Phoef Sutton for a brand-new series of thrillers featuring the invincible and incompatible pairing of Knight and Moon.

Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he’s also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he’d probably be homeless. Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley Moon thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight.

What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it.

ENJOY AN EXCERPT:

BEFORE THE BEGINNING

Günter crept through the darkness, shining his flashlight on
the wall in front of him. The light beam reflected back into his eyes so
intensely that he had to squint. He moved closer and touched the surface of the
twelve-foot tower of solid gold bricks. There were thousands of them, some
dented and battered, some pristine and fresh. All of them shining like new, because
gold never tarnishes.

There had been a time
when Günter loved gold. But that was before he knew the truth. That was before
his search for gold led him to this miserable damp cavern. Far off, he could
hear the echoing sound of water dripping onto the cave floor. Aside from that
steady drip, drip, drip, the silence surrounding him was complete and
claustrophobic.

He stood
statue-still, awed and horrified by the quantity of gold stacked in front of
him. In the all-encompassing silence there was a sigh that didn't emanate from
his body. Günter killed his light and waited in the pitch-black, straining his
ears for the noise to repeat itself. His heart pounded against his rib cage,
and cold fear crawled along his backbone. His testicles had retreated far into
his body. Maybe to the point of no return. Not his biggest worry right now. If
he was found in the cave it would mean certain death. He caught the faint
rustle of cloth and the click of a light switch. Harsh halogen work lamps
flashed on and illuminated the grotto.

For the first time
Günter was able to see the length and breadth of the storage space. Golden
walls had been erected, as if King Midas was building an underground maze.
Stalactites and stalagmites, looking

like the teeth of some subterranean monster, partially
obscured the view. Günter was overwhelmed with regret. He should never have
come here. He'd driven thousands of miles to get to this godforsaken place.
What the heck was he thinking? He was just a middle-aged banker with high blood
pressure and low self-esteem. He had no business playing amateur detective. He
should have gone to the authorities as soon as he began to suspect. Problem
was, the authorities were the ones he suspected.

There! He saw a
shadow moving among the towering limestone columns. The figure of a short man.
A man who moved with the grace of a cat, his footfalls making no sound on the
cavern floor. The man stepped into the light, and Günter felt a chill rip
through him, felt the contents of his intestines liquefy. The man was bald and
had bulging eyes. Günter knew the man. And he knew that the man was looking for
him, and that the man was capable of doing terrible things.

Günter was hidden behind
a stack of gold bricks. He shrank back and scanned the area, looking for an
escape route. He crept to the end of his protective stack, turned a corner, and
almost tripped over a body. It was a woman. Her dead eyes were open wide with
terror and the top of her head was caved in. A gold bar lay beside her, matted
with hair and blood.

Günter gagged and
clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from moaning out loud. He recognized the
woman. She was Yvette Jaworski. And he knew he was partly responsible for her
horrible death. He turned to run and came face to face with the bald man . . .
and the shiny scalpel in his hand.

“Günter, you picked the wrong place to go exploring,” the
man said, in a soft, silky voice.

Günter would have
agreed if he'd had the chance.

CHAPTER ONE

Riley Moon parked her
Mini Cooper in the circular driveway and gaped at the house in front of her.
She

thought it looked as if it had been designed by the witch
from “Hansel and Gretel” after she'd made a killing in the stock market. Its
steeply pitched roof, multicolored shingles, odd turrets, and sprawling,
ungainly porch made it both inviting and ominous. It was located at the end of
a long private drive that wound through a heavily wooded section of Rock Creek
Park. It was one of the biggest mansions in Washington, D.C., and it was
appropriately called Mysterioso Manor. Emerson Knight, the resident owner, was
appropriately known as a nutcase.

Knight had ignored
requests that he visit the bank to discuss his recently inherited fortune and
to choose a new personal banker, so the bank had dispatched Riley to assure
Emerson that his money was in good hands.

Riley maneuvered
herself out of the Mini, straightened the hem of her fitted cream-colored Akris
jacket, and planted her four-inch Valentino heels on the gravel driveway. It
was her second week as a junior analyst at Blane-Grunwald, the mega-bank that
made Goldman Sachs look like a mom-and-pop savings and loan. She'd taken the
time to get degrees from Harvard Business and Harvard Law, and now at age
twenty-eight she was finally ready to set the world on fire. She was going to
make her family proud, pay off her gazillion student loans, and carve out a
brilliant career. And she was moving closer to her goals on this perfect
September morning.

She was two steps
from the massive porch when the front door to the mansion burst open and a
frazzled woman stormed out, swept past Riley without a word, and headed down
the driveway.

A tall, rangy woman
in her midsixties stood on the porch and waved at the angry woman.

“Danielle, give it one more chance!”

“No! No more
chances!” Danielle yelled back. “You're all whacko. And I'm not cleaning up
after no damn armadillo.”

“At least let me give
you a ride home!” the tall woman pleaded.

“I'd rather walk,” Danielle said, stomping around the bend
in the road, disappearing from sight.

Riley thought that
the tall woman looked like she'd just stepped out of the Dust Bowl. Her hair
was mostly gray and piled on top of her head with a bunch of strands escaping.
No makeup. Beat-up running shoes, loose-fitting jeans, and an untucked though
neatly ironed floral-patterned faded pink shirt.

The woman sighed and
turned to Riley. “Sorry you had to hear that, hon, but Danielle had a right to
get her tail feathers ruffled.”

“I'm Emmie's Aunt
Myra. Come on in. Nice to see a pretty girl stopping by, even if it is just
business. And look at you with all that curly red hair and big brown eyes. And
you got a nose that's cute as a button. I bet you work out too.”

“I like to run when I
get the chance. It clears my mind.”

“Well, I'm glad to
see you here. Emmie doesn't have many visitors these days.”

Riley liked that this woman called Emerson Knight, one of
the richest men in the country, plain old “Emmie.”

Maybe the rumors she'd heard were untrue. Maybe he wasn't as
aloof and eccentric as the press reported.

Myra turned back to the door and gave a disgusted grunt.
“The dang thing closed behind me,” she said.

She tried the handle.
Locked. She entered a number into the keypad beside the door. Still locked. She
tried another number. Nothing.

“Shoot,” she said. “This is supposed to be a smart house.

Why isn't it smart
enough to let me in?”

Myra shifted in front of the camera that was part of the
keypad, pushed a button, and said, “Hello, Emmie,” a little too loud, like
Riley's mother did when she talked on a cellphone. “I'm locked out again.”

A man's voice came over the intercom. “Aunt Myra? Is that
you?”

The man sounded distracted, as if he had just been pulled
away from finding a cure for cancer or a marathon binge-watching of Game of
Thrones.

“I received a message
that a bank representative would be visiting. I didn't respond. I assumed that

indicated disinterest.”

“Let us in, Emmie,”
Aunt Myra said. “Open the door!”

There was a faint click, Myra tried the handle, and the door
opened.

Inside was all dark
wood and high ceilings. A huge staircase with blood-red carpet rose up the
center of the very formal foyer. The banister was mahogany. The elaborate
chandelier and wall sconces were crystal. The side chairs, center hall table,
and various chests and side tables were antique and reminded Riley of her
gram's Duncan Phyfe dining room set. When Gram passed on, the furniture went to
Aunt Rose and Uncle Charlie, and it had looked very grand in the small dining
room of their doublewide.

“Just head up the stairs. Go down the hall to your right
until you hear the weirdo music,” Aunt Myra said to Riley. “That'll be the
library. I have to go make lunch. You'll be all right. There's nobody here but
Emerson and me.”

“It's a big house. No
. . . staff?”

“No, they keep
quitting.”

Riley climbed the stairs, and a dark little creature
scuttled across the hall in front of her. The armadillo. Riley was from a
small, windblown town in Texas, and she was more used to seeing armadillos as
roadkill. This one was refreshingly unflattened by an eighteen-wheeler. It
trotted along the carpeted hallway like some alien from another planet, its
shell bobbing up and down as it moved. Okay, so it's a little odd, Riley
thought, but it was adorable all the same.

She'd been
anticipating an eerie organ fugue, or monks singing Gregorian chants, or
perhaps New Age music played on a pan flute. The music blasting out of the
library was 1970s go-go funk.

“I feel like bustin' loose. Bustin' loose!”

Riley entered the library and looked around. The room was
gigantic. A lot more dark wood. An intricate parquet floor, inlaid to look like
a giant chessboard. A fancy circular wrought iron staircase led up to a
balcony. The balcony encircled the entire room and provided access to two
levels of towering carved oak bookshelves. A huge domed ceiling loomed above
her, featuring an eighteenth-century Italian fresco. A large weather-beaten
Coleman tent had been set up in front of a massive stone fireplace.

“Hello?” Riley called, not seeing anyone in the room.
“Knock, knock?”

She crossed the room and peeked inside the tent. No one
there, but it was very cozy with brightly colored silk prayer flags hanging
from the sides and peaked roof. A lightweight sleeping bag was neatly laid out
on a camp cot. A small wooden meditation bench and an altar hugged another
wall. There were fresh flowers and some photographs on the altar.

Riley turned away
from the tent and bumped into Emerson Knight, spearing his foot with her spike
heel.

“Crap on a cracker!” she said, jumping away.

“That's an
interesting exclamation,” he said. “Is that regional to Texas? You have a
definite Texas accent.”

Whoa, Riley thought. The man was gorgeous. He was about six two
and lean. He was wearing loose-fitting gray cords, brown Converse All Star
sneakers, and a gray T-shirt that was loose enough to be comfortable and tight
enough for Riley to see he was ripped. He had a lot of wavy black hair, and
dark eyes that could only be described as smoldering. He looked like the cover
of a romance novel come to life. This was a complete surprise, as it wasn't in
the bio she'd been given. She'd expected Emerson Knight to look like Sheldon
from The Big Bang Theory.

“Entirely my fault. I was exercising my power to cloud your
mind, so you couldn't see me.”

“You're joking, right?”

“Not at all. In fact, I almost never joke.”

“Oh boy,” Riley said.

“What does that imply?”

“It implies that I don't believe you.”

“Did you see me?” he asked.

“No.”

“There you have it.”

Riley decided the man was physically a ten, but
intellectually he was a certifiable fruit basket. Probably did astral
projection to Mars in his spare time. She sucked in some air and did a mental
reboot, going into her rehearsed speech.

“Mr. Knight, Blane-Grunwald considers you one of our most
valued clients.”

“Because I'm really, really rich,” Emerson Knight said.

Not seeming to brag but simply stating the facts. “Yes,”
Riley said. The facts were the facts.

Crossing to a huge
wooden library table, Emerson sat down in a spindly Louis XIV chair and
gestured for Riley to join him at the table.

“At the risk of sounding rude, I see no purpose for your
visit,” Emerson said. “I've repeatedly requested a meeting with Günter
Grunwald. Obviously you aren't Günter Grunwald. I find this all quite odd.”

Riley perched on a chair across from Emerson. “Mr. Grunwald
is out of the office for a few days. Personal leave. I've been instructed to
give you any assistance you might need in his absence.”

“It's been more than a few days.”

“Many days?”

“Yes. That would be more accurate. Günter always managed my
family's assets, including our gold holdings. And now that my father's dead and
the estate has been settled . . .”

“I know this is a difficult time for you.”

Riley's superior had prepared that line for her, knowing
that Emerson's father had died just eight months ago.

“Not really,” Emerson said. “My father and I were never
close. And now that I've inherited the family fortune, I see that it has
dwindled.”

“The economic downturn has been rough on everyone,” Riley
said. She'd been coached on that line, too. “I understand you're concerned
about the state of your portfolio, and I want to assure you that your personal
assets are in competent hands.”

“I don't care about my personal assets,” he said. “There's
more than enough for me. The foundation that controls charitable contributions
is in disarray, and I do care about that. The foundation funds several
positions at three different hospitals. We support leukemia research at
Massachusetts General Hospital. We maintain no-kill animal shelters throughout
the country. We run food banks and shelters for the homeless. We support the
arts. It's now my personal responsibility that the foundation stays financially
healthy.”

“Of course.”

“For some time now I've been having doubts about the
management and security of my assets. These doubts are disturbing my
intellectual equilibrium.”

“I suppose that's uncomfortable.”

“Indeed,” Emerson said. “What it comes down to is . . . I
want my gold.”

Curious Minds by Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton is a 2016 Bantam Dell publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Eccentric billionaire, Emerson Knight meets Riley Moon, a recent Harvard graduate, when her boss sends her to assure Emerson that all is well with his money. But, Emerson turns the tables on her by insisting she take him to visit his gold. Soon the bank is scrambling to explain missing funds, gold, and other employees who have suddenly vanished.

Determined to locate his missing money manager and his gold, Emerson enlists Riley to help him as they travel through Washington, D.C. all the way to New York, uncovering a mind blowing diabolical plot.

This book is intended to be fun and zany, so if you simply sit back and relax and allow yourself to enjoy the show, you will find this bit of super light entertainment will have you smiling and having a pretty good time.

Emerson’s lack of social skills stands out, but is what makes him so charming and sweet. You just have to know how to take him. Riley’s character is like playing the straight man, and she is often taken aback by Emerson’s bluntness, and lack of emotion under duress. The adventure is fun, but nothing all that deep or complicated, which is fine since I was mainly tuning in for the characterization, humor, and banter.

This is book one in the series, so we’ll see how things progress from here, but while this story is charming, fast paced, and evoked a few chuckles, it will need to firm up a great deal if it is to succeed in the long run. But, for now, we’re off to a decent start here, so I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of the series.

Overall, this book will appeal to fans of Evanovich and I think cozy mystery readers might find this one up their alley too, since it’s very tame, lacking graphic violence and is pretty clean as far as sexual content and harsh language.

Taken at face value, this is an enjoyable read, full of amusement and adventure.

Janet Evanovich is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, the Lizzy and Diesel series, twelve romance novels, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and Trouble Maker graphic novel, and How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author, as well as the Fox and O'Hare series with co-author Lee Goldberg.

Phoef Sutton started as an actor and playwright in college; he was lucky enough to go to a small liberal arts college in Virginia, James Madison University, which encouraged student playwrights. Phoef was one of the only undergraduates to win the Norman Lear Award for Comedy Playwriting. After graduation, Phoef had plays produced at various regional theaters around the country, had his award winning play BURIAL CUSTOMS selected for publication by the Theatre Communications Group and was awarded a National Endowment for Arts Playwrights Fellowship.

After marrying and moving to Los Angeles, Phoef started his career at the NBC television show CHEERS. He stayed with the show for eight years, working his way up from staff writer to executive producer, winning two Emmys and a Writer’s Guild Award. A greater training ground for a writer could not be imagined.

After CHEERS, Phoef has produced and created a number of television shows and consulted on others, including NEWS RADIO and BOSTON LEGAL. He is honored to have won a Peabody Award, a GLAAD award and a Television Academy Honors award for this work on BOSTON LEGAL. Recently, he has worked on critically acclaimed series TERRIERS for FX and THE SOUL MAN for TV Land, DEFIANCE for SyFy Channel and ALPHA HOUSE for Amazon.

He has directed a short film – a suspense tale called ‘TIL DEATH. ‘TIL DEATH has been shown and various film festivals around the world and received prizes at the Garden State Festival and WorldFest in Houston, Texas.

Phoef has also worked for many years as a screenwriter and script doctor. MRS. WINTERBOURNE, directed by Richard Benjamin was an adaptation of a novel by one of his favorite authors, Cornell Woolrich. THE FAN, directed by Tony Scott and starring Robert DeNiro was an adaptation of the novel by Peter Abrahams.

Phoef is a published novelist – FIFTEEN MINUTES TO LIVE, a romantic-thriller; DEAD MAN: THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, a horror novel and its sequel DEAD MAN REBORN. 2015 is a promising year for Phoef, with the debut of his collaborations with Janet Evanovich, WICKED CHARMS and publication of his hard-boiled crime novel CRUSH.

Phoef lives in South Pasadena, California with his wife Dawn and his daughters Skylar and Celia.

Edelweiss

Goodreads

Follow by Email

Follow this blog with bloglovin

Pages

About Me

I am married with two grown children, I have two dogs and three cats, I collect vintage paperbacks, I read, and write reviews, blog, promote across social media. I am a top Amazon and Goodreads reviewer.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Share &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.goodreads.com/"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;book reviews&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; and ratings with Julie, and even join a &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;book club&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; on Goodreads.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;